Election postmortem

What a week. Tuesday was election day and, even though it wasn’t a complete disaster for the nation, we certainly gave away some of the momentum that we had going on under the first two years of Donald Trump’s presidency.

We would have needed another 2016 shock-the-world moment for the Republicans to keep control of both the House and Senate and we didn’t get it. I still don’t understand why anyone wants to return the country to the economic malaise that it had been suffering under for almost two decades before Trump came to the rescue, but apparently there are a lot of people who think Trump’s tone is more important than their pocketbooks. It’s absolutely mind-boggling and the epitome of the old axiom, “willing to cut off your nose to spite your face.”

I can’t help to think that some people simply can’t accept the fact that maybe, just maybe, they have been wrong about politics their entire lives. There is no argument that President Trump’s policies have been better for America than President Obama’s, President Bush or any other president — Democrat or Republican. But still, half this country is going to say he is bad for the country because of his “tone.”

And Trump has lifted everyone up, not just wealthy white people. Someday, people will realize that Democrats have been using African-Americans strictly for their votes and then providing them with nothing but broken promises. Trump, on the other hand, has given them proven results, including higher wages and the lowest unemployment rate in history, but that’s not good enough because of his “tone.” Talk about having your priorities ass-end backward.

Besides losing the House to the Democrats, which will mean gridlock, more Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, investigations and, most likely, impeachment proceedings (which will backfire on the Dems.), the other bad news on election night happened here in Mississippi.

Apparently, Mississippians have a very short memory and really don’t care all that much about draining the swamp. After being robbed of Thad Cochran’s senate seat in 2014 by the Establishment, Mississippi Republicans turned around and stabbed Chris McDaniel in the back by voting for the Establishment’s handpicked Cindy Hyde-Smith, a former Democrat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a candidate who has been more mistreated, abused and sold down the river than McDaniel.

Once a darling of the Mississippi Republican Party, Chris made the fatal mistake of thinking for himself, not waiting his turn and not doing exactly what the Establishment told him to do. Chris fought a valiant fight against the swamp in 2014, and the only reason he is not a United States senator today is because the Republican Establishment usurped the will of their own electorate by urging Democrats to vote in a Republican runoff. Much like I can’t understand why people who are thriving under President Trump voted for Democrats for Congress on Tuesday, I’m still scratching my head as to why Mississippi Republicans voted for the same swamp that screwed them over so badly four years ago. But they did.

Now, we have no choice but to vote for Cindy Hyde-Smith in the runoff. But Mississippi Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for not making a stand against the swamp and voting for McDaniel. As for Chris, I’m not really sure where he goes from here in regard to politics. If I was him, I would focus on making a fortune for him and his beautiful family and take pride in the fact that he did everything in his power to make a real difference. It’s certainly not his fault that too many Mississippi Republican voters were just too shortsighted to see that Chris was our only answer in the neverending battle against Establishment corruption and swamp politics.

On Wednesday, President Trump held a post-election day news conference in which he was attacked again and again by an ever-increasingly hostile press corp. CNN’s Jim Acosta not only argued with the president (that is not a journalist’s job), but refused to give the microphone back to a young White House aide. I watched the entire thing live and Acosta did not karate chop the young lady as the White House accused him. However, Acosta and anyone else in the White House press corps who cannot control their active aggression toward any sitting United States president should be banned from the proceedings. Acosta has been hostile from Day 1 and it was the right call. More and more of them should be banned until some decency and decorum returns. And, remember, these are the same people who go on their networks every day claiming that it is the president who is fanning the flames of division in this country. Hogwash.

Within an hour of the close of what was a disgusting, yet somehow mesmerizing press conference, in which this president answered over 60 questions from a hostile press, it was announced that the president had requested and received Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ resignation. Even though everyone in America knew this was inevitable, Trump was immediately attacked by the Democrats and their left-wing media allies. Calls for acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker’s recusal from the Mueller probe were immediate and forceful from the Democrats and their allies, because they fully believe that unless you are hostile and biased against this President you should have nothing to do with investigating him. That, my friends, is the definition of stacking the deck.

Finally, on Thursday night, I spoke in front of a crowd of about 100 people at the first Citizens Against Corruption meeting. It was heartening that so many good, brave and concerned citizens would come out on a dreary, wet night to try to make a difference when it comes to the corruption that runs deep in Jones County/Laurel and Jasper County politics.

What’s disheartening is hearing that at least one Jones County business told their employees that they were against this group and didn’t want their employees to participate in anyway. SAY WHAT? How can you be against a group when they haven’t even had their first meeting yet? Does this mean that your company is for CORRUPTION? What a sad state of affairs and it just emphasizes what a huge challenge this group faces when overcoming the “Good Ole Boys” system of politics that has dominated Jones County for the past several decades.

It will take a herculean effort on the part of Citizens Against Corruption to bring real change to the status quo, but everyone should be applauding the effort. And if you are against their efforts then you are part of the problem.

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